


Birds Of A Feather

by MagicaDraconia16



Series: 2020 Bingos [8]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Animagus, Friendship, Gen, Harry Potter Bingo, Hurt/Comfort, Past Injuries, Revived Plotbunny, Trope Bingo Round 14, TropesAndFandoms20, Wingfic, creature - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:02:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23362159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicaDraconia16/pseuds/MagicaDraconia16
Summary: The thing that gave the impostor away was the fact that he’d removed his coat.
Relationships: Original Percival Graves & Newt Scamander
Series: 2020 Bingos [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1634290
Comments: 2
Kudos: 96
Collections: Harry Potter Bingo, Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen, Tropes & Fandoms 2020





	Birds Of A Feather

**Author's Note:**

> Wahoo, one of the bunnies from the Plotbunny Graveyard was resurrected! This is chapter 13's bunny. 
> 
> The rest of the story was written for  
>  **TropesAndFandoms20:** _Regular square, trope Creature_  
>  **Harry Potter Bingo:** _square Y/O3 - Owl_  
>  and **Trope Bingo Round 14:** _square O5 - Wing fic_
> 
> You may consider Graves here to be OOC, but how much of what we saw in canon was actually his character, and how much was _Grindelwald's_? That's my excuse, anyway...

The thing that gave the impostor away was the fact that he’d removed his coat.

* * *

Centuries ago, a wizard by the name of Scamander had somehow mingled his bloodline with that of some sort of avian magical creature. No-one was quite sure how he’d done it as the records were lost to the mists of time, but ever since then, every male Scamander had developed avian traits.

The head of the current Scamander family had feathers instead of hair. His wife liked to say that she hadn’t really had a choice in marrying him, because nobody else would have come close to her love for feathered creatures.

Their eldest son, Theseus, had feet that were more bird than human, with only three toes and claws instead of nails.

Their youngest son, Newt, didn’t have any _visible_ traits, but his mannerisms were obvious to anyone knowledgeable enough.

One person who _became_ knowledgeable enough was a young boy by the name of Percival Graves. His family had come to England for a month’s holiday at the Hippogriff Reserve that Newt’s parents owned and ran. At eight years old, he naturally gravitated to seven-year-old Theseus and, by extension, four-year-old Newt. He soon learnt that Newt’s fidgeting and head tilting did not indicate shyness, but rather a potential sizing-up. It was at that point that he began calling Newt ‘Feathers’, explaining that the young boy kept acting as if his feathers had been ruffled.

Newt had been confused – after all, he didn’t _have_ feathers – but Theseus had burst out laughing, so Newt just shrugged, and the name stuck.

Unfortunately, in their last week there, a wild Hippogriff had been attracted to the area. Before anyone knew it was there, it savagely attacked Percival, who’d been on his way to meet Newt and Theseus.

Severely mauled and rapidly losing blood, there had been no time to either fetch a Healer or get Percival to St. Mungo’s. With little other choice, Mr Scamander had transfused his own blood into Percival.

Nobody had realised just how strong the creature genes were in Scamander blood until barely three days later, when Percival began to develop wings.

The Graveses had been horrified, and whisked their son home to America where they taught him that his wings were hideous and unnatural, and should never be shown around decent folk.

As a result, Theseus informed Newt some years later, Percival kept his wings firmly strapped down most of the time, and never, _ever_ removed his specially-tailored coat whilst outside his well-warded home.

* * *

So when Newt was brought into an Interrogation Room with a Percival Graves dressed only in shirt-sleeves, he knew instantly that something was terribly wrong.

* * *

What felt like half a lifetime but was actually only two days later, Newt found himself standing outside a large, stately, but rather plain building in an area of New York that Tina assured him wasn’t _quite_ for the rich and elite but was close enough to spit into if the wind was right. Director Graves’ home was ‘somewhere around there’, she’d said, but apparently nobody had ever been able to find it.

Newt had known which house it was as soon as he got close enough. He wasn’t quite sure how, but it gave him the impression that some birds’ nests did, when they were built to blend in with their surroundings but did so almost _too_ well.

He was cautious as he approached the front door, but there were no wards at all. At least, none that he could sense. He wasn’t too surprised; if Grindelwald had been using the Graves home as a base, then he would have forced Director Graves to lower the wards to allow him to come and go as he pleased.

“Hello?” he called, when knocking on the door produced no sign that there was anyone home. “Director Graves? My name is Newt Scamander; I don’t know whether you remember me?”

A faint chirrup from above his head caused Newt to look up. Perched on the inner windowsill of what looked to be an attic window was a large great horned owl. It tapped the window with its beak and uttered what was obviously a loud screech, although Newt could barely hear it.

To say he was surprised was an understatement. Most Americans that he’d come across in his travels had been dismissive of the English’s reliance on owls, considering it old-fashioned and bound to draw attention. Most people in the cities here used pigeons. So why did Director Graves have an owl? And one that presumably nobody else knew about, since nobody had mentioned it. Or did they think that it would have been killed by Grindelwald?

Glancing around – Newt had no idea how many Muggles lived in this area – he carefully pulled his wand from his pocket and aimed it at the front door. “Alohomora,” he whispered, and the door gave a loud _click_ as it unlocked for him.

Newt glanced upwards at the owl again, and was just in time to see it disappear from sight. His breath caught in alarm; instead of turning and jumping or flying from the sill, it had looked as if the owl had turned and _fallen_ off the sill. It was only the fact that _Grindelwald could have left traps_ that stopped him from barging straight into the house and up the stairs to get to the stricken bird.

He carefully shut the front door behind himself and turned to survey what he could see. The house had the air of nobody living there. Just how often did Director Graves spend here, even when he hadn’t been kidnapped by an evil dark lord? _Hmm, that reminded him…_

“Director Graves?” he called. Just because there were no wards didn’t mean the man was unaware of someone entering his home. It was entirely possible that Grindelwald’s actions had left him unable to respond verbally. “Percival? It’s Newt. Newt Scamander.”

Still no response, except for the noises drifting down from the attic that Newt presumed were being made by the owl.

Warily, Newt advanced through the lower floor. There was absolutely no sign of Director Graves anywhere – which, perhaps, wasn’t surprising, as Grindelwald likely would have used everything he could to delay an escape, if Director Graves happened to attempt one. However, there was also nothing to indicate that Director Graves was trapped somewhere else in the house, either. The only response to his calls was from the owl upstairs.

 _Perhaps somewhere that’s protected by magic,_ Newt considered as he found himself back in the front foyer. He tilted his head as he began climbing the stairs. He wasn’t certain if houses like this ran to basements – he’d never had the inclination to study American architecture, after all – but even if this one did have one, he wanted to get to the poor owl before he spent hours looking for something that might not even be there.

There was no sign of the Director on the first floor, either, although Newt very carefully didn’t enter the room that appeared to be the other man’s bedroom. Birds tended to be very territorial about their nests, and to Newt’s instincts, that was what bedrooms translated to, so he rarely entered anyone else’s.

Not, of course, that there’d been much opportunity for that, but it was the thought that counted. On the even more rare occasion that Newt had brought someone home, he’d not allowed them into _his_ bedroom, either.

The owl had apparently been tracking his progress through the house, as it began to make more noise the closer he got to the stairs that led up to the attic. It sounded as though it was repeatedly throwing itself to the floor.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming,” he called. “For goodness sake, please stop moving! You’re going to hurt yourself!”

Surprisingly, the noises stopped.

Newt paused with one foot on the staircase. _Had that owl just… understood him?_ “Um, thank you?” he queried. The owl gave a tremulous hoot. How odd. It _had_ understood him! Birds didn’t usually do so unless they were either extremely intelligent magical birds or…

_An animagus!_

“Merlin!” Newt blurted, and was up the stairs in three bounds. It suddenly made perfect sense that Tina and the other Aurors hadn’t mentioned Director Graves having an owl. Because he didn’t. Because he _was_ the owl! “Hold on, Director Graves!”

The door to the attic was, unsurprisingly, both locked and heavily warded, which briefly brought Newt up short. It was obviously Grindelwald’s doing, but had he been warding against the owl, which seemed a bit much, or against the man?

Frowning in concentration, he waved his wand in an increasingly complex pattern, teasing the magic out into view. It took a while, as there was more of it than Newt had expected. Grindelwald had definitely gone overboard with it.

“Honestly, what was he expecting you to do?” Newt murmured as he finally managed to get the last part of it visible. “This type of warding could even hold back an erumpent in heat! Ah!” He made a sound of triumph as the entire door suddenly began to glow. “There we are. Now, let’s see…”

It seemed to Newt, as he slowly unravelled each separate part of the magic, that Grindelwald hadn’t been too sure of what exactly Director Graves was, so, apparently to be on the safe side, he had warded against everything he could think of that might keep the Director penned in.

Plus a few things that wouldn’t. Newt shook his head as he drew out a strand of a spell that he knew full well was to guard against _cockroaches_. Merlin only knew why Grindelwald thought the Director had anything to do with _those_.

He muttered angrily to himself as he discovered a spell to keep large beasts caged. That particular spell was illegal, and only used nowadays by the very worst of wild creature poachers. He’d already known, of course, but this just proved that Grindelwald wasn’t too picky about the atrocities his followers got up to in their spare time.

“Just one more . . . _minute_ , Director Graves,” Newt said through a grunt as he wrestled with the last spell strand. He barely even registered the agreeable hoot as he struggled to force his wand through the intricate pattern necessary to disarm it. This spell didn’t appreciate it, and was fighting back. If his wand slipped, then he’d have to start over again.

“Ah-ha!” he exclaimed in triumph as he managed to finish, then he immediately gave a yelp of alarm as the spell burst into glittering sparkles. There was an alarmed _mrrr_ ing sound from the other side of the door, and Newt realised that Director Graves thought one of Grindelwald’s spells had managed to injure him. “Not to worry, I’m fine!” he hastily assured the man… owl… animagus. “Just a bit of sparks, that’s all. There! Alohomora!” He tapped his wand on the door, and it obligingly clicked itself open.

The attic was surprisingly tidy, despite the fact it appeared to hold every piece of furniture the Graves family had ever acquired in the last five hundred years. Halfway between the door and the window, the large horned owl sat slumped on the floor, its wings held out awkwardly as though it didn’t know what to do with them.

Newt cast around one last time for any stray traps Grindelwald may have left behind, then finally gave in to his instincts and scurried forward to scoop the owl off the floor. It hooted and fluttered its wings at him, but then sagged into his hold.

“I’ve got you, Director,” Newt murmured. “Let’s get you out of here and see about turning you back.” The owl clicked its beak, then resettled itself so it was resting against Newt’s chest.

The best place, Newt decided, was in the dining room. He carefully lowered the owl to stand on the table, holding it steady as its talons scrabbled for purchase on the polished oak surface. He was careful as he began inspecting it for injuries or spells; not just because it wasn’t in his nature to be anything but kind to creatures, no matter their form or size, but because this was Director Graves, a _person_ , someone that he’d known once.

Eventually, finding nothing more wrong than a slight malnourishment, Newt stepped back. “You’re in surprisingly good health for what you’ve been through,” he told the owl. “Are you able to turn back now?”

The bird tilted its head and then swivelled to bury its beak in the feathers on its back. Newt found his own head tilting as he watched, curious. The owl rummaged for a moment, and then, with a jerk of its head, straightened up, a horrible, diseased-looking feather in its beak. It dropped it to the floor, giving a hoot of disgust, and then looked at Newt again. It blinked several times.

With a suddenness that even surprised Newt, the owl disappeared, leaving behind Director Graves sitting on the table. He stared down at his hands for a moment, flexing them as if making sure they were actually hands and not still bird’s feet, and then stretched, arms and wings both going wide, before settling back with a sigh.

“Oh, Mercy Lewis, it’s good to be human again,” he groaned, rubbing his hands vigorously over his face. He looked up at Newt, and his head tilted again. Newt found himself unconsciously copying the action. “Do I… I _know_ you,” Graves said, slowly.

“Newt Scamander,” Newt said. “I, er—”

“Feathers!” Graves exclaimed, interrupting whatever excuse Newt had been trying to stammer out. “My God, I almost didn’t recognise you,” the man went on. He sounded a lot friendlier than Newt would have expected. “How’d you find me?”

“Ah—” Newt felt himself flushing, although he didn’t know why. “One of your Aurors, Tina Goldstein? She brought me to the neighbourhood.”

Graves frowned, thoughtfully. “My Aurors?” he repeated, seeming to chew this thought over. Newt wondered just how long Grindelwald had trapped him in his bird form. Then Graves’ expression became horrified. “My Aurors!” he exclaimed, and shot to his feet. He wobbled, unused to having _feet_ instead of talons, and Newt gripped his arm to steady him. “Grindelwald!” Graves continued. “He… He used some kind of spell to become me! We need to get to MACUSA and tell Seraphina right away!”

Newt held up his other hand, preventing Graves from dashing off. “It’s alright,” he said, soothingly. “Grindelwald’s been taken prisoner. That’s how we knew to come looking for you.”

“What…?” Graves stared at him for a moment, then sank back to sit on the edge of the table again. “Mercy Lewis, what happened?” he asked.

“I came to New York,” said Newt, “and, uh, things happened and . . . hmm.” Sheepishly, he ducked his head and peeked at Graves from the corner of one eye. A fleeting smile curved Graves’ mouth. “Well, I, ah, endedupgettingarrested,” Newt continued in a rush.

Graves raised an eyebrow at him. “I beg your pardon?” he asked.

Newt felt himself blush deeply, and ducked his head even further. “Everything’s fine now,” he hastened to explain, “but something happened, and the person we thought was _you_ arrested me. When he came to interrogate me, he was just in shirt sleeves.”

“And so you knew it wasn’t _me_ ,” said Graves, glancing sideways at one of his wings.

“Precisely.” Newt gave a sharp nod. “We managed to reveal Grindelwald, and _he’s_ now been arrested. I believe Madam Picquery is currently debating with the ICW over who gets to hold his trial.”

“Well, then.” Graves got to his feet again. “I suppose I’d better go in and see what kind of mess he’s left my department in.”

Newt followed the Director towards the entrance foyer, and was surprised to realise the man was pulling on the heavily warded coat that Theseus had informed him about. “Are you sure you want to continue wearing that?” he asked.

Graves buttoned the coat and smirked at him. “But Feathers, how will you know it’s not me if I stop wearing it?” he drawled. Newt gaped at him as the other man turned to open the front door. “Come on; let’s go set the nest to rights.”

Shaking his head in bemusement, Newt followed him out through the door.


End file.
